We learn from fairytales the importance of knowing the name of the demon that is on our case. Remember Rumplestiltskin?

One of the most horrible demons that besets modern lives nearly succeeded in erasing his name from our minds. The word acedia was once pronounced obsolete by the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary. Now it’s coming into common usage, thanks in part to a luminous memoir-cum-meditation by Kathleen Norris titled Acedia and Me.

Acedia literally means “not-caring”. Let’s note that our word “care” derives from an Indo-European root meaning to “cry out”. Not to care is not to cry out, in the midst of life and death, to be perennially numb. Acedia produces a state of torpor and disaffection more serious than depression. Norris contends that while depression is an illness that can be treated, acedia is a “vice” that can only be contained by spiritual practice and prayer.

The Desert Fathers identified acedia as “the noonday demon” that sucks the joy and the will to action out of life. Maybe it’s a cousin of the dementors in the Harry Potter novels. Let’s not give it any traction. Let’s start by never saying, “I don’t care.”